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See also www.anoshirani.com and www.anoshirani.blogspot.com
70,000 words
Finished books available
US: Milkweed Editions, Spring 2007
Canada: Doubleday, Spring 2006
Italy: Piemme, Mar 2007
Spain: Alfaguara, Spring 2007
France: Editions Philippe Rey
Israel: Kinneret, 2007
Greece: Agyra, Fall 2007
Portugal: Quetzal
Portugal (book club edition): Circulo de Leitores
Brazil: Editora Planeta
Mainland China (simplified characters): Beijing Booky Company
Taiwan (complex character Chinese): Commonwealth Publishing
Russian language: Phantom Press
(Photo: Tushna Shroff)
Anosh Irani was born and brought up in Bombay, India, and moved to Vancouver in 1998. He is the author of the acclaimed novels The Cripple and His Talismans and The Song of Kahunsha. His play Bombay Black was a 2006 Dora winner for Outstanding New Play. Anosh's first full-length play, The Matka King, premiered at the Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver, in October 2003.
a novel by Anosh Irani
A NEW NOVEL BY ONE OF CANADA’S BRIGHTEST YOUNG WRITERS ABOUT THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION TO HELP US OVERCOME THE MOST FORMIDABLE OBSTACLES
- An American Library Association 2008 "Best Books for Young Adults" Nominee
- Anosh Irani is a 2007 Governor General's Award nominee for Drama for The Bombay Plays
- An Italian bestseller
- A Canadian bestseller
- A 2007 CBC Radio 'Canada Reads' selection
- Read Anosh Irani's essay on The Song of Kahunsha at Largehearted Boy's blog
- Anosh Irani interviewed on CBC's "Words at Large", November 2006
It is 1993 and Bombay is on the verge of being torn apart by religious violence. Ten-year-old Chamdi has rarely ventured outside his orphanage, and entertains an idyllic fantasy of what the city is like-a paradise he calls Kahunsha, "the city of no sadness." But when he runs away to search for his long-lost father, he is thrust into the chaos of the streets, alone, possessing only the blood-stained cloth he was left in as a baby. There Chamdi meets Sumdi and Guddi, a brother and sister who beg in order to provide for their sick mother, and 
the three become fast friends.
Fuelled only by a desire to find his father and the dream thatBombay will someday become Kahunsha, Chamdi struggles for survival in its brutal streets. But when he is caught up in the beginnings of the savage violence that will soon engulf the city, his dreams 
confront reality.
Moving, poignant, and wonderfully rich in the sights and sounds of Bombay, The Song of Kahunsha is a compelling story of hopes and dreams, and of the fragility of childhood innocence.
PRAISE FOR THE SONG OF KAHUNSHA
“Ultimately, The Song of Kahunsha is a story of hope and resilience in the face of terrible circumstances. Chamdi loses his innocence, but his dreams of a better place - of a Kahunsha - for him and his friends save his soul from the destruction and darkness that surround him… From the perspective of one child, Irani shows the long-lasting harm to individuals and society when different groups fight in the name of God. The Song of Kahunsha contains a damnation of religious violence in a multicultural society and a 
hope that the next generation, like Chamdi, will find a way to separate from it. ” — THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“The novel shocks and educates us about the degraded life of children on the streets of Bombay, and the fantasy of Kahunsha demonstrates the power of imagination in the face of adversity. [A] compelling work recalling Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL
“Anosh Irani reveal[s] the tender heart of human need in his devastating yet surprisingly gentle novel.” — MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
“Irani is a gifted storyteller, and [The Song of Kahunsha], Dickensian in its plot and its vivid prose, is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.” — BOOKLIST
“[Irani's] melodies in The Song of Kahunsha are at once bright and melancholic, his characters and senses as sharp as tusks and his plot as lithe as children running.” — NATIONAL POST
“[Irani] rewrites Dickens' Oliver Twist with his native Bombay replacing nineteenth-century London.. Pure storytelling.” — TORONTO STAR
“Evocative and colourful.” — THE LONDON FREE PRESS
“A gripping and compassionate novel that will resonate long after readers have completed it...calls to mind Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance.” — WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
“Beautiful.... [It] vindicates the fragile but triumphant scope of childhood imagination with touching grace.” — THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“[Chamdi's] relentless struggle to survive makes him one of this year's most unforgettable heroes.” — EDMONTON JOURNAL
“With understated skill, Anosh Irani tells such a darkly enchanting story of the abandoned children of Bombay that I felt swept away by their fate and entangled in the world's too believable cruelty towards the innocent. Irani's shocking tale unfolds with a macabre and terrifying beauty that is both heartbreaking and compelling.” — WAYSON CHOY, author of All That Matters and The Jade Peony